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The real future of gaming?

In the wake of E3 we find ourselves fed the industry’s vision of the future, the big reveals of the PS4 and the XBONE Although some argue the number of actual consoles this generation. Some people think that this is the last console generation as such. Through Kickstarter we’ve received several new vistas for our gaming needs.

The OUYA bringing back classics through an emulator in your living room. And some other Android-based games. With the much smaller price-tag (read one-fourth) of the PS4 and it’s vast library of games that are substantially cheaper. It shows that indie games are the next step in gaming.

Many have awaited the arrival of the VR-headset, which has been a dream for many years. The Oculus Rift finally made it happen through kickstarter, and maybe with help of the resurrection of 3D film. While it is not a console in itself, and all console support is very speculative. It brings up the question on whether we need consoles. I think that we do, but that it depends very much on Sony and Microsoft not to make themselves a thing of yesterday. Living in the tablet age, nobody has a computer anymore, and a console is much cheaper if one desires gaming. I see huge potential in tablet and console removing the desktop from many homes.

Diving into VR, we really need to use our hands inside this new reality of ours. Using the controller or mouse and keyboard, just feels dull with the new-found dimension. Sixense might have just the thing to couple with our Rift. Maybe we will also see the rise of gun-controllers as the FPS is a very natural platform for VR.

The thing that I would want more than these controllers, though, is MYO. There’s no need for controllers, use your hands. There would be more opportunity to reshape the experience with a completely new interface. Just imagine skyrim with it, swapping spells by changing hand gesture just like in-game.

This is one thing that excites me alot. I have had many ideas for different contraptions like this one in the past. The Omni is a little bit more clever than my sketches ever were. Translating your running, crouching, jumping into the game has always been a bit of a dream on my part. And now it is soon to be real, even though I probably won’t fit it in my living room or any other room for quite some time.

Imagine now that we had full PS4 support for these items, and that it was possible to play PC titles available today on it. No matter how unlikely that is. There wouldn’t even have to be any games designed for it, at least to begin with. Oculus Rift already has alot of support in Unity and Source. The Omni translates into keystrokes and could be plugged into any game out today. The MYO would be able to translate the gestures similarily. You could probably play at least HL2 after some tweaking, straight out of the box.

That would mean that in early 2014 you could get the whole VR dream package: